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>Do you believe there's something that geeks aren't better at than non-geeks (when it comes to being an employee)? I'll actually make a claim here: Over time,

>Do you believe there's something that geeks aren't better at than non-geeks (when it comes to being an employee)? I'll actually make a claim here: Over time, no. We've got to get away from this myth that learning a programming language makes you forever forget how to shower, makes you unpleasant, ignorant of the customer, etc. Now, that may actually happen to devs, but this is a) a not-unforeseeable consequence, and b) avoidable/fixable over time. What is not avoidable is that people who don't know how to program, and how software works, still don't know how to program, and end up making decisions while blind. This is an invisible problem, that customers, sales managers, and shareholders never see directly, but it manifests in unrealistic expectations being set, crunch time, and missed deadlines. Or sometimes they do see it---my brother is sole data scientist at a small company, and is regularly astonished at how little reps of the latest ML-in-a-box seem to know about what they're trying to sell him. There are unreasonable programmers, I don't mean to say there aren't. However, that can be fixed without making them forget how to program. Meanwhile, the process for helping a non-technical employee understand the rest of the business...probably involves having them be a line engineer for a few weeks, i. e. the most straightforward way to solve the problems associated with non-technical stakeholders is to make them technical.

BigBubbleButt 7y ago
> We've got to get away from this myth that learning a programming language makes you forever forget how to shower, makes you unpleasant, ignorant of the customer, etc. This wasn't even implied, and seems like a projection of your internal biases. My point was geeks are good at some things, and bad at others. Nobody is better at everything, and that is a profoundly arrogant stance to take. > What is not avoidable is that people who don't know how to program, and how software works, still don't know how to program, and end up making decisions while blind. Sure, and most geeks have never made a sale in their life. Most geeks have never raised VC capital before. Most geeks have never had to make a presentation to shareholders before. Geeks have their strengths and weaknesses just like everybody else. However this "us vs them" mentality is just a setup for disaster. Sure, it would be better if more people had the knowledge to code like geeks as that lends them more perspective. Likewise, it would be better if more geeks had the knowledge to do sales, create partnerships, and everything else useful for running a business as it would lend them more perspective. But people can only do so many things with the hours in a day, which is why people specialize and collaborate. The obvious superficial example to bolster my argument is to look at the clusterfuck of product launches at Google, a fundamentally engineering-first company. They're the laughing stock even amongst geeks here on HN.
- invalidOrTaken 7y ago
  I think the "geek vs non-geek" thing is the root here. What makes a geek? Is it knowing how to program? If you take your average sales guy and teach them js, do they suddenly become a "geek"? If by "geek" we mean "bad at sales," then yeah, no shit they have weaknesses, it's tautological. If we mean "is technically competent," would making a non-competent person competent suddenly make them a "geek" and now subject to a bunch of new weaknesses? Actually, as measured, I think it would, just like someone could no longer eat mystery meat with the same gusto if they knew what went into it.

BigBubbleButt 7y ago

> We've got to get away from this myth that learning a programming language makes you forever forget how to shower, makes you unpleasant, ignorant of the customer, etc. This wasn't even implied, and seems like a projection of your internal biases. My point was geeks are good at some things, and bad at others. Nobody is better at everything, and that is a profoundly arrogant stance to take. > What is not avoidable is that people who don't know how to program, and how software works, still don't know how to program, and end up making decisions while blind. Sure, and most geeks have never made a sale in their life. Most geeks have never raised VC capital before. Most geeks have never had to make a presentation to shareholders before. Geeks have their strengths and weaknesses just like everybody else. However this "us vs them" mentality is just a setup for disaster. Sure, it would be better if more people had the knowledge to code like geeks as that lends them more perspective. Likewise, it would be better if more geeks had the knowledge to do sales, create partnerships, and everything else useful for running a business as it would lend them more perspective. But people can only do so many things with the hours in a day, which is why people specialize and collaborate. The obvious superficial example to bolster my argument is to look at the clusterfuck of product launches at Google, a fundamentally engineering-first company. They're the laughing stock even amongst geeks here on HN.

invalidOrTaken 7y ago
I think the "geek vs non-geek" thing is the root here. What makes a geek? Is it knowing how to program? If you take your average sales guy and teach them js, do they suddenly become a "geek"? If by "geek" we mean "bad at sales," then yeah, no shit they have weaknesses, it's tautological. If we mean "is technically competent," would making a non-competent person competent suddenly make them a "geek" and now subject to a bunch of new weaknesses? Actually, as measured, I think it would, just like someone could no longer eat mystery meat with the same gusto if they knew what went into it.